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Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Jewish Book Carnival for December 2015

I'm delighted to be hosting the December 2015 Jewish Book Carnival! The carnival, which appears on the 15th of each month, brings together an assortment of information on Jewish themes.Here are this month's selections:

Hanukkah Books: A Diverse Dozen is a booklist by Heidi Estrin showcasing Jewish diversity within the genre of Hanukkah books, including Sephardic Jews, Jews of color, disability, and interfaith families. The Book of Life podcast features Enough With the Holocaust Books for Children, a virtual panel discussion about the Holocaust's place within Jewish literature for children and teens, with reading suggestions.

Over on the Jewish Book Review blog, Rivka Levy takes a look at the life of the late HaRav Ovadia Yosef, whose life spanned some of the most tumultuous, challenging and rewarding years in Jewish history, in her post.Diana Bletter at The Best Chapter interviews Jillian Cantor, author of The Hours Count.The Fig Tree Books blog takes note of this year's Hadassah Magazine Ribalow Prize Winner (Molly Antopol) with a look back at last year's recipient (Helene Wecker).

On My Machberet, Erika Dreifus interviews author Rebecca Klempner.Ellen Golub looks at Chronic PsychoSemitism in the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute's blog, Fresh Thinking.With a full season of great 2016 titles coming out just after the Festival of Lights, Jewish Book Council put together a list of 8 books to preorder over Hanukkah--plus a ninth for the Shamash! Be sure not to miss Christopher Noxon's Visiting Scribe series on his recent conversion to Judaism as a 40-something married father. And on top of the past month's 30 Days, 30 Authors video series, The ProsenPeople continues its ongoing weekly interviews with authors.

At Life Is Like a Library is Chava Pinchuk's review of the beautiful new cookbook Everyday Secret Restaurant Recipes, which includes a recipe for Gong Bao Chicken from Dini's Kosher Restaurant in Beijing.The Israel Diaries looks at the book A Damaged Mirror: A Story of Memory and Redemption, by Ovadya ben Malka and Yael Shahar.My own website recently featured an interview with Todd Hasak-Lowy, the author with Michael Gruenbaum of Somewhere There Is Still a Sun, which recounts Gruenbaum's experiences during the Holocaust.

About Me

Author, THE PRESIDENT AND ME: GEORGE WASHINGTON AND THE MAGIC HAT, new children's book (Schiffer, 2016). Co-author, with Marvin Kalb, of HAUNTING LEGACY: VIETNAM AND THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY FROM FORD TO OBAMA (Brookings Institution Press, 2011).